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Taking over a Dead IoT Company

blog.kchung.co

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Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#131

Post by jareklupinski »

dom96 wrote: post #126
jareklupinski wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVAIWfGBARk/ my problem was squeezing the MTA API parser into the ESP32 flash... as long as you use off-the-shelf / already conforming modules, like the esp wroom etc, the cost for FCC compliance testing goes down into the thousands. it's still a line item, but over a run of 1000-2000 units, it turns into something that costs about a buck per board :)

> my problem was squeezing the MTA API parser into the ESP32 flash... Ahh, I wouldn't do that. The way I've done it is by pushing as much of the API handling logic off the ESP32 and onto a standalone server. The ESP32 is effectively a dumb client which takes in instructions like "WRITE westminster 5 min" from the server and draws the appropriate text/pixels/etc. > as long as you use off-the-shelf / already conforming…

that's fair ;)

when kickstarter was first taking off, I loved using it to springboard only the projects that would at least break even: if there wasn't enough demand, nothing happens, but as long as the minimum is high enough to cover all the costs, it worked out pretty well

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#132

Post by elcritch »

jareklupinski wrote: post #119
dom96 wrote: post #94

In 2020 I set out to build something very similar[0]. This was before I even knew NYCTrainSign existed. I started with zero electronics knowledge and learned a lot. My prototype has been running solidly for way over a year and while I've always hoped I would be able to turn it into an actual product I could sell... doing so proved challenging. Really what blocked me the most was CE/FCC conformance. I have done a lot…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVAIWfGBARk/ my problem was squeezing the MTA API parser into the ESP32 flash... as long as you use off-the-shelf / already conforming modules, like the esp wroom etc, the cost for FCC compliance testing goes down into the thousands. it's still a line item, but over a run of 1000-2000 units, it turns into something that costs about a buck per board :)

Yah using the pre-canned esp32's make the cert process a lot easier.

@dom96 thats cool! Ping me on the Nim discord sometime if you want. I've not done FCC but did do some hardware certification stuff. For low volume products there possible ways around full FCC certs I believe. IIRC, you can sell things as "kits". I wonder if theres also exemptions for "prototype builds" too.

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#133

Post by canadianfella »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #90
explodingwaffle wrote: post #77

Woof. Adafruit + Raspberry Pi in a shipped product screams to me that they did not have a real electronics guy on their team. https://ukdepartureboards.co.uk/ is the British equivalent of this, and it seems to do everything right (don’t own one, but have seen on Twitter)- optional subscription, and nice looking hardware (seems like they contracted out for that). Though at the minute I suppose there are barely any tra…

This is all too common in my experience, "oh we could just use an arduino/pi and a hat and a peripheral" rather than "Design a system that does ". As an EE who spent their primary career programming (horrors I know) and in systems analysis, I see it as the logical extreme of "why use a 555 when I can program an ATTiny to be a timer and do other stuff too!" The allure of having one be able to add features "with just a…

[dead]

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#134

Post by anigbrowl »

This was really interesting - a well deserved spot at the top of the front page. It's rare to see an article that combines the technical and business analysis so well.

It's amazing to me how quickly the company loaded itself up with staff. Being kinda familiar with ESP32 development, I thought at the beginning that the company would have 4-6 people - 1-2 technical, 1-2 production, 1 business/sales/marketing, 1 admin. It seems like they opted to target the luxury nostalgia market with the $600 price point rather than a more value-driven $300, and wrapped themselves in an aura of success rather than growing it naturally. The descriptions on the resumes of the former marketing staff juxtaposed with the business reality was...quite a contrast.

It's especially sad as the basic idea was good and seems sustainable at a lower price point - with a metal/plastic housing it might have been an easy sell to businesses near subway stations, for example, and developing cosmetically different versions for other large cities would be quite feasible. I wonder what made them take the 'growth corporation' approach rather than crowdfunding the prototype > product route, which was fairly well established even 5 years ago. That offers a fairly clear roadmap for new ventures and is sufficiently familiar to consumers that innovators can do some market segmentation and have a cushion of patience to get them though the design to manufacturing transition.

A great case study for anyone thinking about launching a product for fun or profit.

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#135

Post by elcritch »

jareklupinski wrote: post #131
dom96 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my problem was squeezing the MTA API parser into the ESP32 flash... Ahh, I wouldn't do that. The way I've done it is by pushing as much of the API handling logic off the ESP32 and onto a standalone server. The ESP32 is effectively a dumb client which takes in instructions like "WRITE westminster 5 min" from the server and draws the appropriate text/pixels/etc. > as long as you use off-the-shelf / already conforming…

that's fair ;) when kickstarter was first taking off, I loved using it to springboard only the projects that would at least break even: if there wasn't enough demand, nothing happens, but as long as the minimum is high enough to cover all the costs, it worked out pretty well

Crowdsupply is great for those things now. They're much better at helping get hardware projects off the ground, and they can handle S&H too.

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#136

Post by hinkley »

tyingq wrote: post #101
pettycashstash2 wrote: post #97

Wait, you are open sourcing code that you did not write but reverse engineered? It that legal?

Google vs Oracle seems to say that offering up a compatible api with different internals is legal. Exploiting the signs seems risky though.

Fujitsu vs IBM also says you can make compatible hardware and release it as well. And of course they lost other, similar cases during the PC Clone era.

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#138

Post by TickleSteve »

luma wrote: post #24
canucklady wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think dunking on the rpi is harsh - if it allows you to prototype and get your small-volume product out the door quickly, there's lots of other areas you could optimize the BOM first. Better to make a product with 75% gross margins as a single dev in 6 months than a product with 80% gross margins with a team of 6 in a year. Of course, they also overhired and wasted money on other BOM components

The problem with rPi is storage and filesystem. You need to issue a shutdown command and wait for it to complete before removing power in order to help ensure that it will come up without problems. This will literally never happen with a consumer IoT device. Also, SD media is extremely prone to failure. It's fine for prototype at a very early stage, absolutely not fine for something you ship to a user.

You would typically use a read-only filesystem in an embedded system, not the default raspbian style distro. This allows you to a) not require a clean shutdown and b) saves your physical media from writes.

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#139

Post by hinkley »

pdntspa wrote: post #70
michaelt wrote: post #8

"As we discussed earlier, even at $300 the product is too cheap. The sign should have likely been selling at $600 from the very beginning." Even at $600 - there's a screenshot saying the company had three engineers and a marketer. If your 4 employees earn $25k per annum, with the $150 parts cost you'd have to sell 222 signs at $600. And if the employees were on $100k, that's 888 signs a year. That's a heck of a lot o…

Why does a project like this need three engineers? Two, I can kind of see (a hardware guy and a software guy, though it doesnt look like the hardware guy was doing much here), but three?

I wish I could get contracting houses on board with the notion that there are many tasks that require 30-50% of a person but greatly increase the quality of the work. I almost convinced some people at the last place but convincing the customers is something else entirely. Code reviews by more expensive staff for instance. Architectural reviews. Security audits.

One engineer makes a mess because there is nobody to push back. Two engineers either fight or achieve full echo chamber. Three balances some power dynamics, but you definitely don't need 3 FTEs. In fact for this project you probably find 3 of your friends' friends to sit together for 4 hours twice a week and slam out some code or designs, in exchange for a little money and some equity. You even get to write off food and beer as a business expense.

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#140

Post by mileza »

anigbrowl wrote: post #134

This was really interesting - a well deserved spot at the top of the front page. It's rare to see an article that combines the technical and business analysis so well. It's amazing to me how quickly the company loaded itself up with staff. Being kinda familiar with ESP32 development, I thought at the beginning that the company would have 4-6 people - 1-2 technical, 1-2 production, 1 business/sales/marketing, 1 admin.…

I think the 600$ price point was inflated with the Pi and the Arduino being used. Simply changing some parts for cheaper ones would have allowed to reduce the BOM cost and thus reduce the price. The author mentions this in his post.

Also seemingly not a lot of people paid 600$ for the sign, with a lot going for a lot cheaper than that.

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